


If Only

by error404_happinessnotfound



Category: Monsta X (Band), 僕だけがいない街 | Boku dake ga Inai Machi | ERASED (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Abuse, Child Abuse, Childhood Friends, Crossover, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, School, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-23 22:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17089316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/error404_happinessnotfound/pseuds/error404_happinessnotfound
Summary: Jooheon, failing photographer, goes back in time, but to save whom?





	1. Chapter 1

He tensed his index finger. A pause, followed by a click. A memory, sealed forever in pixels.

A memory of an apple in front of a white backdrop.

"Great, great," the man - Jooheon had forgotten his name, it didn't matter anyway - said. "Now, I was thinking - maybe from this angle-" He stepped two feet to the right. "-and, I don't know, I'm feeling- perhaps a bit more light. To really give it that shine, you know. Does that make sense to you?"

"Crystal," Jooheon mumbled. He stepped over two feet to his right and adjusted his position slightly, pretending to give it proper thought and consideration before gesturing for his assistant to change the lighting settings. Then he held the camera up to his eye, squinting through the viewfinder as his lashes brushed up against plastic, and took another shot.

An apple. All of this - his assistant, working the lights; the man, hounding him for angle after angle; and of course himself, a professional photographer with big aspirations and nothing to show for it - all of this for an apple.

He wanted to shoot the damn thing, and not with his camera.

"I think that one was perfect," Jooheon said, straightening up. He was taller than the man by a head or so which wasn't necessarily usual for his height, but it didn't seem to give him any additional authority in the manner. The only way to get out of the whole mess was to push his professional experience to the foreground and sprinkle a bit of flattery on top. "Your intuition was right, the angle was perfect. Good lighting. I think we've got all the material we need."

"W-Wait," the man stuttered, already shifting over to another spot in the room that Jooheon could have sworn he already got. "I was thinking maybe from here-"

"We'll send you the files in the morning," Jooheon promised with a smile, his eyes crinkling. He had to put a lot of effort into trying to appear polite since his voice was low and harsh. He'd accidentally offended more than one potential client because he hadn't bothered to fake sincerity. "Have a good day sir."

"Ah, well, yes, okay, thank you very much Mr. Lee-"

Jooheon gave a mock salute and exited the premises, his assistant tagging along behind him.

"What an apple," his assistant - and coincidentally, his best friend - praised, his equipment clinking and clanking in the heavy bag strapped across his shoulder.

"Shut up," Jooheon growled, clutching his camera bag in his hands lest he use a fist to punch Changkyun instead.

"No, really. The way itshone in the light-"

Jooheon whirled to face him, the camera bag flying in a small arch before thumping on his chest. "That bloody apple is going to make us a few thousand dollars, if we process the photos well enough. So laugh at it all you want, but if we manage to pay our bills-"

"I know, Heonie," Changkyun said, patting his friend's chest with an apologetic twist to his lips, although his eyes remained bright. "I'm not complaining. And I know that this isn't exactly the photography you wanted to be doing anyway."

Jooheon sighed, looking away from Changkyun, his eyes catching on the passing cars. Each car had its own story. Where it came from, who it carried - there was depth there, depth that he, with his camera, could bring out, could emphasize and exaggerate and manipulate. But an apple?

Changkyun smacked Jooheon between his shoulder blade twice before sliding his hand to the right and fitting his arm across Jooheon's shoulders, steering them toward the parking lot. "Hey, don't worry about it, okay? You're great at what you do. And yeah, maybe it's just an apple, but you're going to make it look like the best damn apple it can be, okay?"

"Yeah," Jooheon muttered, his eyes still on the cars as he felt the stir of inspiration in his stomach dip and decline.

"Good. Now let's get dinner and..."

***

Jooheon blinked. He couldn't remember what had happened the rest of the night. This sort of thing happened from time to time, these blackouts, whatever they were. He didn't know why. Probably because his life consisted of shooting commercial still life images, something so mundane and nauseating that it put even his own mind to sleep.

He remembered the days when he was eleven years old running around alone in the woods behind his house with his first camera, the one his mother had bought for him for his birthday. He'd taken pictures of everything back then - trees mostly, some of the sky, some animals. He'd taken a few seasonal shots, fall mainly. He wasn't a big fan of winter. The snow, a white expanse, too similar to a blank canvas. It robbed him of his ideas, of his inspiration until the spring came, filling the canvas with colors and life once more.

He'd heard of people dreaming in black and white. That was what winter was to him, a thief. As soon as he'd gotten old enough, he'd moved to the city, where winter seemed to be an unwelcome guest,  _persona non grata._  The constant stream of cars scattered and displaced the snow, refusing to let it get a foothold. Everyone was too busy to let winter leave its mark. The city was full of thousands of people each trying to make their own mark on the world; how could there possibly be room for winter to do the same?

And Jooheon was glad. He loved the city, with its colors, its flavors, its smells and scenes and textures and people. It was always shifting, changing, standing in direct defiance of the stagnation of winter with its snow and blank canvas.

Jooheon at times missed the forest behind his old home, but never enough to return.

***

"Did you send the file?" Changkyun asked, groaning before taking a sip of coffee and immediately hissing, almost dropping the mug on the table in his haste.

"Yeah, last night," Jooheon replied, blowing on his own hot beverage before taking a cautious sip. After high school, Changkyun had followed him out to the city, where they'd moved into an apartment to save on rent money before opening their own photography business. It hadn't matched up to his dreams of capturing what he thought of as the perfect image, the picture that would make him magically transform from just a boy with a camera to a true photographer, but it was enough. He didn't hate photography yet, and the money was enough to live on. He might never eat an apple again, but he hadn't been huge on them in the first place so it wasn't a huge loss.

"Good, good." Changkyun had another job - Jooheon didn't know what it was this time; it was always something new and extremely temporary. Jooheon wasn't sure if it was because Changkyun was a horrible employee or if, like Jooheon, he was searching for something more than what he was finding, but Jooheon didn't ask. "I'm going to be late if I don't leave soon, but I'm going to hit the grocery store on the way back from work. Do you need anything?"

"Nah," Jooheon replied. He didn't know what he needed or didn't need, but he didn't like it when Changkyun spent his own money on it. If Jooheon needed something, he'd buy it himself. "Good luck today. Try not to break anything."

Changkyun rolled his eyes as he stood up, unable to reply since a piece of toast was hanging out of his mouth. He began buttoning his jacket while chewing, eventually mumbling, "Try not to miss me, you asshole."

Jooheon just rolled his eyes, gesturing for Changkyun to leave, which he did after returning a gesture of his own.

The door shut, and Jooheon was left to himself.

They'd gotten $2,000 for the apple job. After expenses had been paid and Changkyun had been given a cut, that left Jooheon with $1500. Then bills and food and a few luxury items...

Jooheon didn't know how much longer he'd be able to keep this business alive.

Forget the business, he didn't know how much longer he'd be able to keep  _himself_ alive.

Because this job, these pictures - they weren't filling the void in his soul. It had been enough once just to have his camera in hand, but it wasn't enough anymore. He was searching for something, he didn't know what, and every day that he went to bed without finding it, he felt a little bit more empty inside.

He didn't know how much more of himself there was to give away.

***

He was waiting to cross the street when it happened. He'd been out, searching for job offers. A little girl, no more than ten or eleven years old, began walking before the signal flashed. Jooheon heard the car before he saw it, the wheels screeching against the rough street as acceleration abruptly switched to deceleration, not quickly enough to avoid the inevitable tragedy that was about to occur.

The car barreled forward, and there was a sickening  _crack_. Just like that, a life gone.

And just as abruptly, Jooheon was approaching the street corner once more. The girl was a few feet in front of him, the car not yet arrived. Just as before, the light switched, the walking sign delayed.

The girl took a step.

The car began breaking.

And so Jooheon propelled himself forward, pushing the girl out of the way, further into traffic but out of the path of the approaching vehicle.

He felt to the ground just as he heard a small crash and the sound of something shattering.

Chest pumping with adrenaline, he turned over his shoulder to check out the damage. No one else injured, most of the pedestrians staring from safety at Jooheon and the girl, who had begun crying.

And there, in the middle of the street, his beloved camera, its body mangled and mutilated beyond repair, for when he'd leapt forward, the strap had slipped off his shoulder. A camera for a life. Not a bad trade.

But as Jooheon helped the girl to the safety of the street corner, he stared at the fragments of the only object he'd ever loved, the way the sun glinted off its sharp angles. What he would have given to take that picture. Girl, now safe, forgotten, he reached out a hand toward the corpse of his equipment -

"C'mon," a small boy said as their hands locked, the buildings suddenly replaced by small houses covered in white powder. "We're going to be late to school  _again_ and it's completely totally all your fault this time so don't even try to blame me."

Jooheon blinked, not moving. "Changkyun?"

" _Late,_ we're going to be  _late_ ," the boy repeated, dragging Jooheon down a narrow sidewalk path and toward the street lined with dirty piles of snow.

A second ago it had been late summer and now it was winter, but what bothered Jooheon more was the fact that the boy pulling him - Changkyun - looked to be only eleven years old.

It had happened again, then.

He was in the past.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every other chapter will be a short vignette. These may appear out of chronological order but serve to augment the story line.

_The boy sits behind his desk and stares out the window, hoping that tomorrow will come soon and fulfill all its promises._

_If someone says they’ll love him tomorrow, and tomorrow comes, **tomorrow** becomes **today** , so it’s still not tomorrow, is it?_

_It will never be **tomorrow** ._

_The boy thinks that he’ll be happier, tomorrow._

_That maybe today he’s worthless and ugly and broken but tomorrow, he’ll be priceless and beautiful and whole._

_Tomorrow, he'll smile, and it'll be real. Not almost real. Real._

_Tomorrow._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be using the Erased birthday dates rather than the real birthdays due to plot constraints.

The day passed by in a blur for Jooheon. His 11-year-old body sat behind a small school desk and stared at a blackboard full of elementary math, but his mind was elsewhere.

This time travel thing had happened before. It was how he'd saved the girl back on the street corner. He'd never been able to control it, nor did he really understand it. All he knew was that he'd occasionally be pushed back in time to save someone.

Never this far back, though. And he'd always had a clear idea of his purpose, but he had no idea what he was doing sitting in class. Who was he supposed to save? And why here, why now? The only connection he could make between what had happened earlier and where - and when - he was now was that the girl had appeared to be around the same age as he was currently. But what was that supposed to mean?

"Dismissed!"

Jooheon startled, almost falling out of his chair as the bell rang and children began streaming past him. Children - he was a child too, now, again. He was reminded of that fact as he got out of his chair, feeling lighter than he had in years, and maybe not only physically.

"You were so spaced-out today," Changkyun laughed, smacking Jooheon's back. Jooheon almost fell forward from the force, but he managed to rock back onto his heels. "What's up with you? Excited for your birthday?"

"Birthday?" Jooheon asked, turning his neck to look at Changkyun and read his expression.

"Yeah, don't think I forgot," Changkyun said, snorting lightly. "It's coming up soon, isn't it? March 1st? That's only like a week away."

"Yeah," Jooheon said, smiling and running a hand through his hair. "That's it. Just excited." Confused, more like it.

As he walked with Changkyun, he looked around, taking in the sleepy town he'd forgotten, had rushed to escape. But the familiar streets didn't seem to resent him at all for it. He found his feet walking along the old route with certainty even though he himself wasn't quite sure of each twist and turn.

And then, altogether too quickly, they were in front of his house.

"See you," Changkyun said, giving a two-finger salute, and Jooheon saluted back with a grin before turning to face his childhood home.

His mother.

His heart tightened at the thought.

He walked to the door.

***

She was in the kitchen humming when he entered the house, and she didn't turn or stop what she was doing when she addressed him. "How was school, honey?"

_Honey_ had always been their little joke because he could never be sure if she was saying  _honey_ or  _Heonie._

"I..." Jooheon couldn't remember what had happened the whole day, having not paid a single ounce of attention. "It was all right."

"Oh?" She turned then, patting her palms on her apron as flour particles danced in the air. "You're not going to complain about it today? Seems you always have something to moan about."

Jooheon flushed as he remembered what an annoying little boy he must have been. "I- Sorry."

She crossed her arms, staring at his with narrowed eyes. "Are you feeling okay, honey?" From the tone of her voice, he knew she was five seconds away from taking his temperature.

"I'm fine, I just felt a little weird today is all." It was the truth, after all. He was a 29-year-old in an 11-year-old's body staring at a woman he hadn't seen in several years. It wasn't that they'd had a falling out or anything; rather, he loved his mother dearly, but...city life never seemed to slow down. It had certainly never slowed down enough for Jooheon to enjoy the small town he'd been raised in, and with the city full of new wonders and distractions each day, Jooheon had found new excuses as well, reasons to stay away. And so family dinners had turned into phone calls, and Jooheon had forgotten all about the languid town from his youth.

And now, he was back. Why, he didn't know. But he was back.

"Go take a rest then," she instructed, and he knew better than to argue with her, especially when he was only 11.

Before he turned to go to his room, however, he took a step closer and wrapped his arms around his mother's waist. He couldn't see eye-to-eye with her in his smaller body, but they seemed to fit together better. He was just the perfect size to rest his head against her stomach and close his eyes for a moment, knowing that there was a pair of bigger arms around him, protecting him.

"All right, that's it," she said, and although her voice was threatening, the her warmth wasn't a lie. "You really must be sick, honey. Change into pajamas and hop in bed, I'll be up with soup in a minute."

Jooheon paused, ready to protest that he was just fine, but the word that came out instead was "Okay." Because it had been a while since someone had taken care of Jooheon, looked after him. He had Changkyun, but that was different. If he had to be honest with himself, realizing that he was 11 had come as somewhat of a relief. Jooheon was tired of being an adult. Maybe a day or two like this wouldn't hurt at all. "Thanks, Mom," he said with a smile as he pulled back.

She raised her eyebrow. "Must be the flu."

He just smiled and went to his bedroom. His pajamas were in the first drawer he opened, the drawer he expected them to be in. He changed as directed and got in bed, pulling the covers up to his shoulders. When he'd been a kid, he hadn't thought of much of anyone but himself. He couldn't remember if he'd ever thanked his mom for making him soup, couldn't remember if he'd ever given her a hug for no reason.

He wanted to change that. He was here anyway. Might as well.

But if it wasn't her that he was supposed to save, then who?

***

She came in later with the promised soup and something else, something small and wrapped in shiny paper.

She set the soup down first before pulling the box out of her pocket. "I was saving this for your birthday, but I thought since you were feeling out of sorts today...maybe it would help you feel better." She hesitated before setting the box on top of Jooheon's covers. "Happy birthday, honey."

She leaned forward, one arm supporting her weight as she ran a hand through Jooheon's hair, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You can open it now if you want or save it for later, but I want you to get some rest, okay? You feel better if you do, trust me."

Jooheon nodded. "Thanks, Mom," he said. "For the soup. And for this." He picked up the box in his hands, running his thumb along the edge of the wrapping paper and over the tape.

"You don't know what it is yet," she said with a small smile before standing up and flicking off the lights. "Get some rest, honey, okay?"

"Okay Mom."

She left before Jooheon could answer her first question. He knew exactly what was in the box because it was a present he'd never forget.

His first camera.

And in his eyes, he could see the crushed outline of his camera, the one he'd used for his business. He could see photos of the apple, photos of commercial products that he'd never given a damn about. He could see his whole career, the waste of time that it was, one grand misconception as he chased a dream that had eluded him until he'd been tricked into settling for less, for being satisfied rather than inspired, for being well-fed instead of passionate.

_Maybe that's what this is about,_ Jooheon thinks to himself, still holding the wrapped package in his hands.  _Maybe this is a second chance for me, to get it right this time, to start new while photography was still something I loved._

And he realizes then that maybe the one he's supposed to save is himself.


	4. Chapter 4

_"The boy you had over seemed nice. He left before dinner, though," Jooheon's mom says while she mixes several ingredients in a large kitchen bowl. "Did you invite him to dinner? You know that I always tell you that your friends always have a spot at our dinner table."_

_"He had to leave," Jooheon says. It's true, but he doesn't really know why. Hyungwon never gives him reasons. He doesn't know if Hyungwon has reasons to give him._

_"He's the one the other parents were talking about, right?" she continued. "The one who lost his finger?"_

_"He got frostbite," Jooheon explains as his mother hums in acknowledgement, bustling around the small but cozy kitchen. "He said it hurt, that there was lots of blood."_

_"That's ridiculous," she says, clucking her tongue as she opens the oven and peeks inside. The homely scent of apple pie drifts through the kitchen, making its way to Jooheon, who forgets the conversation for a moment as he breathes in it and feels all of his muscles relax in response. "Frostbite doesn't bleed, honey. He was probably making up a story to sound tough. Which reminds me, you're wearing your gloves when you go outside, aren't you? It's too cold not to and I don't want you getting frostbite so you'd better..."_

_His mother's voice drifts off into the kitchen air, and Jooheon looks out the kitchen window. The snow used to look clean, but all he can see is blood coating the horizon._

**Author's Note:**

> Please support my search for happiness: ko-fi.com/nobodyimportant


End file.
